Obama and my wheelchair

Got my first wheelchair a little while ago.  I ordered it off a great website: http://www.spinlife.com

Free delivery!  Fast, too.  It arrived within 48 hours of my pressing “buy.”

Originally, I was, how you say… ambivalent about having to buy a chair.  It’s really not the most joyful Internet purchase for a girl to make.  It’s no Zappos.com.  But I started looking around on the site, and I really got into it.  There are some hot wheelchairs on the market these days: ultralightweight titanium chairs, badass quad rugby chairs, chairs you play basketball in, reclining chairs, different colors…. 

I ended up going really basic.  I got the Invacare Tracer EX2, a 40 pound standard wheelchair that folds and fits in the trunk of my Honda Civic.  It’s the transport wheelchair of choice at most airports and hospitals, and I love it!  Easily the best $150 I’ve ever spent.

I’ve been using it for outings.  This may sound petty, but I haven’t been able to hang out at the mall in more than a year.  So my husband and I took the chair and went shopping.  And it was so nice to be out and about.  Normally when I run errands, it’s basically a race against time.  I have 10 to 15 minutes of standing time before the pain starts.  It was just great to be out without having that stopwatch ticking, you know?

And that’s the interesting thing about wheelchairs.  The idea of getting one scared and depressed me.  It was such a symbol of what was going wrong with my health.  But the whole point of a wheelchair is access, equal access.  You don’t have to be stuck in the house, you can be out there with people whose legs work just fine.

Which brings me to the Obama campaign connection.  My wheelchair arrived in a giant cardboard box emblazoned with the Invacare logo and their motto, “Yes, you can.”